Archive for the ‘1965 Toyota dream car’ tag

* Rock artists hate to see demo versions of their songs get leaked out to the public, if only because the demo versions are unpolished or incomplete. We bet auto designers feel the same way about prototypes and styling studies, but we see both as a way to examine how an idea – whether musical or auto-related – came together. Take, for instance, the photos of this 1949 Studebaker Land Cruiser prototype that emerged recently on the Studebaker Drivers Club forums. Though, in this case, we’d perfectly understand any effort to keep this design from seeing the light of day.

* On the other hand, the difference between prototypes and show/concept cars is that the latter get put on display for all to see while the former are usually hidden away or discarded. The fellas at Hooniverse found some photos of a couple excellent Mopar show cars from the muscle era. It surprises me we haven’t seen more of these muscle show cars come out of the woodwork in recent years.

* Another subset of show cars you hardly see mention of anymore? 1960s Japanese show cars. Fortunately for us, Japanese Nostalgic Car dug up this photo of the 1965 Toyota Dream Car and touched off a good discussion about it.

* Anytime BigLorryBlog puts the words “vintage” and “weirdo” in the title of a post, you know it’s gonna be a good day. Among the vintage weirdos BLB highlighted was the above circa 1933 Holland Coachcraft van on a Commer chassis, as identified by frequent Hemmings commenter marmer.

* Finally, enough with the oddball and one-off stuff. How about some motorcycling history. Specifically, the Selvedge Yard has a great post on the history of the Oakland Motorcycle Club, founded in 1907. We, of course, dig the lead pic, which shows excellent signage on the W.P. Williams Excelsior dealership.